Dark Harmony by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 34

Desmond

The years may have passed, but my father still fights the same.

Like a coward.

I chase him through the darkness, the two of us becoming one with it before we return from shadows to men. Over and over and over.

“You cannot kill me,” he says as our blades clash. The two of us hover in midair, most of the fairies fighting below.

“So long as you suffer, I don’t fucking care.” Save for Callie’s father, I have never hungered for vengeance so badly. I want to skewer him like an animal and roast him over a spit. I want to carve him up and make him watch as I remove his organs one by one. I want to use every bit of torture I’ve perfected over the centuries to make him pay for my mother, for my siblings, for the threat he poses to my mate.

Galleghar parries the blow, the blades sparking at the force of the hit, then he’s gone again.

I vanish to darkness, sensing him reforming above me. I coalesce back into a man only for my father to dissipate into shadow once more. Now he’s behind me, now he’s across the room. I chase him, weaving through the battlefield around us. Malaki bleeds from his abdomen, and Janus is holding his arm close.

Temper might be the least hurt, but her eyes have started to glow; the sorceress is losing her mind and will to her power.

And Callie, Callie is facing off against the worst monster of them all. I have doomed her to him. Even now I quake at the thought of—

Galleghar reforms in front of me. I manifest in front of him, my blade poised. He aims his sword for my stomach, and my swing becomes a defensive strike, knocking his weapon aside.

Galleghar laughs. “You cannot kill me. Nothing can kill me.”

“Is that why you bound yourself to the Thief? So you could never die?”

A question hardly worth asking. Of course the fool picked the most malevolent being to cobind himself to.

“Secrets are meant for one soul to keep,” Galleghar says.

I nearly drop my sword. My mother used to say that to me when I was a boy. When the sleeping soldiers began to whisper it, I wondered why.

Galleghar strikes out again, and I meet the blow with my blade.

“That bitch who whelped you said that to me.” Galleghar says behind our locked blades. “Did you know that? Over and over she’d whisper that into my ear like a taunt. But the joke’s on her because she’s dead and the only miserable thing she cared about will die a horrible, grisly death.

“My little spy,” Galleghar continues. “The Thief sees her from time to time. Has he told you that?”

Cold-pressed rage drips into my veins.

If what he says is true …

“He loves to torment the dead, and even for our kind, his attentions are uncommonly wicked.”

The two of us are still locked by our blades, the metal grinding against each other.

“At least your mother will get a break soon,” Galleghar continues. “Once I kill your mate, the Thief’s attention will be wholly occupied. I almost pity that slave of yours. He will make her do things that would make even whores blush.”

I feel my icy hatred expand.

“He might even make you watch.”

I shove Galleghar’s weapon back, our swords unlocking. There is nothing I’d love more than to run him through. But I haven’t survived this long by giving into my temper.

Several sleeping soldiers break away from their fighting when they notice I haven’t disappeared. They leap into the air, their wings unfurling, their weapons pointed towards me. I disappear and reform only long enough to kill each one.

The soldiers’ lifeless forms fall from the air, and I heave several breaths, my body bloody, as I approach my father once more.

Galleghar’s eyes flick briefly to the falling dead.

“All that power,” he murmurs, “I’m almost proud to see how strong my blood flows.”

“You could’ve spared yourself all of this,” I say. “I’m only fighting because you wish me dead.” Because he learned of his fate, and thus made it his mission to kill every last one of his offspring.

Galleghar laughs, like I’m some fool, rather than a seasoned king and criminal.

“Don’t delude yourself, son. That is not the only reason.”

I scowl at him.

“Don’t you feel it?” he asks. “Our brutality is right there in our magic, simmering through our veins. If I’d chosen a more peaceful path, I’d still have died by my broods’ sword. We are a poisoned lot.”

As if in response, the shadows begin to whisper.

I glance down at Callie and the group of sleeping soldiers that encircle her. Her wings are out and her skin glows. My beautiful, lethal siren. One of soldiers steps towards her, a sick look in his eye.

Callie …

Dread pools in my belly, the likes of which I have never felt.

“What could you possibly offer that creature?” I ask Galleghar, still staring at the showdown between my mate and the monster Galleghar unleashed on this world. That ancient evil is nearly unmatched in power.

“Oh, quite a bit, my ill-conceived son,” my father replies. “Freedom from his eternal bonds, power, life as we know it … and a kingdom.”

A kingdom of spirits and rotted flesh. The Land of Death and Deep Earth.

“How could you promise him something like that?” A kingdom to conquer. That would be like me offering another the Kingdom of Fauna.

The Thief of Souls was never Death’s rightful heir.

“Surely you know this land sits right on Death’s doorway,” Galleghar says. “I marched my forces in, took the palace by force, and let him do the rest.”

Even here, in the Otherworld, the laws of life and death are fairly rigid. To take the living into the land of the dead, then defeat the dead …

And now the Thief of Souls was a king. Not just a puppeteer filling the body of a dead or dying ruler, but one in his own right.

“You gave him freedom and a kingdom and some of your power, and then you let him put you to sleep, hoping he would wake you up.”

“He did wake me up.”

That might be the most surprising piece of this whole thing—that the Thief actually followed through on his end of the deal. The Thief of Souls needs Galleghar no more than I do.

I nearly laugh. “You actually trust him,” I say, amazed.

My father was always a doomed man. No one can have that sort of ego without consequences.

I shake my head. “Surely you know you cannot control something like that,” I say. Something that was older than us, stronger and more malicious than us.

Callie will have to face that creature.

The dread thickens.

“I don’t need to,” Galleghar replies haughtily. “I just need to co-exist with him.”

Now I do let out a cruel laugh. “You think he’ll just let you be? You think he owes you any loyalty?”

“I freed him from his eternal bonds.”

It is a staggering feat. Other kings wouldn’t have dared. But it means nothing to a being like the Thief.

“He’ll keep you around so long as you please him.”

And the Thief’s pleasure is a fleeting thing.

Galleghar’s face twists. His age-old ego, borne from centuries of pitiless ruling, now shows itself. He believes too much in his own self-importance to see the truth clearly.

My father gives no warning. His form flickers, one moment several feet from me, the next at my back.

I sense rather than see his sword arching towards me. In an instant I’m gone, and then we’re back to trading blows. For several minutes, he and I are all that exists.

He and I and Callie—always Callie. I can’t not notice her every movement. Her power sings to me even now, that siren in her calling to me, always beckoning me back to her side. It’s only time and practice that keep me focused on the battle at hand.

I nick Galleghar’s arm, and he grazes my thigh. On and on it goes, blow after blow, one close hit followed by another. Never have I fought a more difficult foe—and never have I enjoyed the challenge so much.

My father is right. There’s brutality in our blood. I’ve always been aware of it, but it’s times like this where I feel the carnage calling to me.

I can hear our labored breaths, and smell the sweat and blood and magic dripping from our skin. The whole room is thickening with it …

Around me, the shadows have fallen quiet. So very, very quiet.

I feel him then. The Thief.

I parry a blow from my father and let my eyes sweep the room.

How had I not noticed?

All of that vile, unnatural magic I’m choking on doesn’t belong to Galleghar or any one of the sleeping soldiers. It’s the Thief’s.

I can feel his life force all around me. He’s not simply an undead king, or a banished leviathan—

I hadn’t realized until now the true nature of darkness. It closes in on me from all sides, one with the magic.

… We’re sorry …

… So sorry …

Cold, bleak certainty washes over me.

My eyes move to Callie just in time to meet her horrified gaze.

I love you, I want to say. More than worlds can hold or words can convey. You are everything that has ever mattered to me. Have faith and strength. You’ll be alright.

The darkness closes in on me, descending on my flesh just as I’d seen it do to so many of my enemies.

I try to speak the words, to give Callie something, but the shadows sink into me, carrying dark magic with them. It feels like fire beneath my flesh, an inferno in my veins.

I’m sorry, cherub. My beautiful nightmare. You will have to save us all yourself.